Sequoia Capital India closes its sixth fund at $695M

Sequoia Capital India has closed its sixth fund at $695 million to invest in early and growth stage companies in India and Southeast Asia. It will use the funds to ‘double down’ on investments in the technology, consumer and healthcare sectors.

With this investment, Sequoia becomes the biggest venture capital firm in the country with total assets under management in India standing at $3.9 billion, reports the Economic Times. This is despite trimming down the size of the latest fund. While the $695 million fund seems massive on paper, reports indicate that Sequoia cut down its fund size from around $1 billion due to concerns over the performance of the startups in the country.

In fact, the fund size is also lower than its previous round for India, which stood at $920 million, which at the time was reportedly the largest ever VC fund for India. However, other reports suggest that going forward, the company may choose to make other larger investments in the country (and South East Asia) via its massive $8 billion global growth fund.

Over the past 12 years, Sequoia Capital has invested more than $2 billion in India, including in Zomato, Freshworks, JustDial, Healthkart, OYO, Citrus, Faasos, FreeCharge, Grofers, Mobikwik, Pine Labs and Practo etc.

Sequoia India doesn’t have a dedicated fund for other South East Asian countries, and directs all its investments through Sequoia India. Its investments there, which account for 20-30% of Sequoia India’s investments, by value, include in companies like Go-Jek, Tokopedia and Traveloka.

The company also announced that its Managing Director Abhay Pandey has decided to move on from the firm. Pandey had worked with Sequoia Capital for more than 11 years. He is on the board of 14 healthcare and consumer companies of the VC firm’s portfolio, according to its website.

Abheek Anand, who joined the VC firm from Facebook, has been promoted to Managing Director. Anand will focus on investments in Southeast Asia. The VC firm has also promoted four vice presidents to principal roles. Ishaan Mittal and Sakshi Chopra will become principals in the growth team, and Ashish Agarwal and Harshjit Sethi will become principals in the venture team, it added.